Tag / social hypocrisy

In Jordan, a woman may disable her facebook account after she gets into a serious relationship, do you know what else she may do? Fake innocence! That is not an uncommon advice, where married women would advice their friends who got recently into a relationship to act *surprised* if her boyfriend/fiance tried to touch her hand. If it is her wedding night, then the advice would be for the woman fake shyness and ask her husband to shut off the light!

Sadly, Jordanian women are still expected not to be sexually active before marriage. Although many are indeed sexually active, in discretion, but with no intercourse (to maintain the hymen), it is nothing acceptable to be mentioned infront of your future husband. The common perception, if a woman made out with a man, he won’t marry her! So if she made out with her first boyfriend, and his didn’t marry her, she won’t make out with her next one and end up marrying him! He, on the other hand, would try with her before marriage, and if she refuses, then she would have passed the test, and then he would end up marrying whom he thinks to be the pillar of virtue (in his own moral values ofcourse).

Well yes! That is a great advice. With such social values, and such mentality of men, women must have learnt how to trick them! and then again, it is a trick that most men are willing to take because it spares them the hectic of carrying on with what society expects from them if they know the truth!

Well let’s look at it closer:

A man waiting for his wedding night, he is eager to have halal sex with the woman he has married but he expects her to act cold, shy, and inexperienced. He still hopes that he will have good sex – that is the reason he got married afterall!!

Well that doesn’t really work! It takes two for good sex. But if she is going to please him, then she would show some knowledge, and thus alert him of a potential pervious experience which would push him to divorce her.

Do we really have to be this hypocrite? Can’t women just stand up for themselves?!

Like this:

It baffles me how many female friends/acquaintances have disappeared from my facebook friends’ list. I don’t take that personal as I know that it is always related to a new kind of relationship in that friend life – usually an official one like in engagement or marriage -.

Disabled facebook accounts, male friends’ removal, or tightened privacy settings are not uncommon among Jordanian women when they engage in a serious relationship, actually it is becoming more of something that is expected! Why would a married woman keep male friends on her facebook list? We still can’t think of people’s relationships outside gender binaries, do we?

How many women are out there who have suspended their online social relations for the sake of their families? which is, in other words, to avoid problems that may arrise with their husbands. How many women are out there who do expect such behaviour from their men? and actually give them legitemacy by claiming that it is our culture. We can’t break off it, can we?

How many men are out there who carry on such behaviour not because it does really threaten them, but because it is what they believe people expect from them, including their own wives? Would she lose respect of him if he didn’t get mad over her facebook account? Maybe some would, and it may better to act the way they expect me to act, no?

Isn’t it easier to just break off – even slightly – from social expectation? When will Jordanian women stop excusing men abusive behaviour under the name of our culture?